'I think so,' Conan replied. 'People who live in cities have little to do but talk.'
'At least we Khitans have somebody worth talking to,' Cha said, 'and things worth talking about. What you Cimmerians got to talk about?
Cattle? Snow? We…'
Conan silenced him with a sharp wave and hiss. The three stood frozen and silent. There was nothing to see except the lurid glare in the sky, but faint sounds were drifting down from the mountain, hellish sounds of raucous chanting and screaming, underscored by a deep, rhythmic thunder of drums.
'It sounds like the lamentations of damned souls,' Chulainn said.
'Maybe that what you are hearing,' Cha told them.
'We'll never know unless we get closer,' Conan said.
They advanced, but very cautiously now, keeping to the deepest shadow, and silent as shadows in their movement. Conan noted with approval that Cha moved with the same silent assurance as the Cimmerians and did not seem to be using magic to do it. The Khitan was perhaps as large as a twelve-year-old Cimmerian child, and he was in a foreign land and approaching an unknown, dreadful danger, but he did not seem to be afraid.
Chulainn came close to Conan and whispered, 'I think that some civilised people are not as soft as I have heard.' Conan just nodded.
Jaganath examined the corpse on the frozen ground. It was that of a
very young man, features fixed in a snarl of rage and hate. He was beardless, with black hair and grey eyes that now stared at nothing. The right hand was still clenched around the grip of a long, straight sword, somewhat narrower than the weapon favoured by the Vanir. In the other hand was a spear. Jaganath looked up to see the three wounded who stood talking to Starkad.
'This lone boy did so much damage?' the Vendhyan asked the chieftain.
'I told you they were doughty fighters,' Starkad said. 'And this one had a mission he thought was so important that he chose to fight his way through a hundred Vanir rather than run like any sensible man.'
'What mission?' asked Jaganath.
In answer Starkad stooped and grasped the spear in the youth's left hand. He had to step on the wrist and twist strongly to wrench the weapon loose. He held it up for Jaganath's inspection. It was brown-black from the point to the socket of the spearhead.
'It is filthy,' Jaganath said. 'Do these Cimmerians not clean their weapons?'
'This is a Bloody Spear. It means a gathering of the clans. Runners go out to all the clans bearing these spears and those who receive them gather at a place called the Field of Chiefs.'
'What kind of blood is it?' Jaganath asked with professional interest.
'If the cause of war is the killing of Cimmerians by foreigners, they use the blood of the victims. Otherwise, the clan that sends out the call assembles its warriors and they cut their arms to bloody the spears.'
'Why are the clans being called together?' Jaganath said.
Starkad looked down at the corpse. 'He does not seem inclined to tell us, but I doubt that our little incursion is sufficient cause. We are still far from the Field of the Dead, and they have no way of knowing that is our destination. For a sally by a hundred men, the blackhairs would send out the fighting men of one clan, no more. They must be facing some serious threat, perhaps another invasion from Aquilonia.'
'If that is so,' said a Van, steam coming from the midst of his red beard, 'then they may be too busy to bother us.' The others nodded eager assent.
'So I am hoping.' Starkad smiled. 'They are being called from a spot far from here.'
'How do you know that?' Jaganath asked.
'The blood on that spear is three, perhaps four days old. You would not believe me if I told you how far one of these mountain goats can travel in three days.'
'We have runners in the mountains of Vendhya too,' Jaganath said.
'So now this little escort duty does not look so onerous, eh?' The mage smiled tauntingly.
'We were never afraid,' Starkad maintained. 'But who wants a hard fight if none is needed?
'I thought you Vanir enjoyed fighting,' Gopal said.
'For honour, yes'—Starkad shrugged—'or for vengeance, or sport. But when it is for gold, we prefer the gold without the fight. Fame lives after a man is dead, and is worth bleeding and dying for. Gold is something passing. It may be worth risk, but only a fool dies for it.'
'So, northern barbarians are philosophers,' Jaganath said. 'Truly the age of miracles is upon us.'
Two Cimmerians and one Khitan lay upon a rocky outcrop, peering down into a vast pit from which came a hellish illumination. Only their heads as far as the eyes protruded over the lip of the stone. High on the east face of the mountain above them gaped the entrance to the huge cave called the House of Crom. Conan had seen the entrance once as a boy, when the clan had come to the Field of the Dead to bury the old Canach, slain at Venarium. The pit they now gazed into had not been there at that time.
The thunder of the drums was a constant cacophony now, and the screams and groans of those below formed a discordant harmony to the
steady drumming. The pit was filled with mist and steam, from which sprang occasional tongues of unnatural, smokeless flame. Vague shapes could be made out within the fog, some human, others hunched and shambling and unfit to share the clean air of the mountains with true men.
'Whence come those flames?' Conan asked in a whisper.
'They are ignited vapors,' the Khitan said, 'which come from inside the earth, and are like the breath of dragons of Khitai. I know of a place where it comes to the surface by the sea, and the peasants use it to boil down sea water for salt.'
'Nobody is making salt down there,' Conan said.
'The sky lightens to the east,' Chulainn said. 'We had better find a place to hide before we are seen.'
Conan looked up the face of Ben Morgh. The ice that crowned its summit reflected the earliest rays of the morning sun. He looked back down into the pit. 'I want to get a better view of what goes on down there,' he said.
'Your friend is right,' Cha urged. 'Best be away from here. Come back when dark again.'
'A few more minutes,' Conan said, his calm tone masking the inner horror he always felt in the presence of wizardry. 'I want but a glimpse of it. How can we fight what we do not understand?'
Then they heard a new sound. It was a rumbling even deeper than the tone of the drums, and somehow they knew that its origin was in no artificial object, but was rather some huge, unthinkable creature in the mist below. For a moment, against a new flaring of the unnatural flames but still obscured by the mist, they could just discern the awesome shape of a moving creature so immense that the mind rejected it. Then, most horrible of all, the rumbling voice, so low-pitched as to hang on the threshold of human hearing, began to form alien but unmistakable words.
'Let us leave this place, Conan,' urged Chulainn with a faint tremble in his voice.
'That sounds like a good—wait.' Conan held up a hand to delay his two companions, who were about to beat a fast retreat. They paused, and their gazed followed his.
The monstrous form was sinking out of sight, and the flames were gradually lowering, as if the infernal fires were dying. The tormented screaming continued, but it seemed to recede, as if into a great distance.
The shadowy forms no longer moved against the wall of mist. Last of all went the drumming, which became fainter for a while, then ended abruptly in mid-beat. For a while all below was silence. Then a thin breeze began to whip the lingering mist to tatters, revealing a huge open pit to the early morning light. There were no creatures in it, human or inhuman, living or dead. The craggy floor was carved into strange, uncanny shapes unpleasant to look upon, but there were no openings anywhere to indicate how or where the pit's late inhabitants had gone.
'Now let's get out of here,' Conan said.
The three slid backward on their bellies until they were well away from the pit, in the bottom of a narrow, rocky gully identical to a thousand others radiating from Ben Morgh. They descended
until they found a tiny, cramped cave just big enough for the three of them, and there they huddled as the first rays of the rising sun streamed into the mountain valleys.
They plucked some scrubby shrubs and brushed away tracks that might lead searchers to their hiding place. Then they piled the brush against the entrance.
'Tell us, great magician,' Conan said, 'what did we just see?'
Momentarily, the Khitan sat with eyes closed, mumbling to himself. At last he came out of his self-induced trance. 'I think it is a thing from the most ancient legends. It is from before the Book of Skelos, before Python of Acheron.' The ancient shook his head. 'Nay, those things are recent compared to what we saw in the pit this night.'
'Then you saw more than I did,' Conan said dryly, 'for I saw nothing but fog and flame, though I'll own I heard some hellish sounds I'd not care to hear again.'
'You have not eyes of a magician. I see more than you, I hear more; I
understand more.' The Khitan had lost his half-intelligible chatter and spoke with clarity. 'This thing is an evil so ancient that it existed before storied Atlantis rose from the sea only to be swallowed again. This Earth is ancient beyond the dreams of philosophers, yet the thing in the pit is more ancient still. Many times have the wizards of mankind driven it away to the gulfs outside the time and space that spawned it, yet always has it found a way to return, called back by the overweening ambition of foolish mages who dreamt of absolute power.''
'Where did it go when the sun rose?' Conan asked.
'Below. The thing has bent the creatures of the underworld to its bidding, and they have hewn it tunnels to reach the surface, as they carved that pit. They can close these tunnels so cunningly that no ordinary man may find them.'
'How long until the equinox?' Conan asked.
'Six days,' the Khitan answered.
'How may I get into the tunnels?' Chuiainn asked. 'I must find Bronwith if she lives.'
The Khitan looked from one man to the other, his slit eyes wide with amazement. 'You mean you both will go through with your plans, knowing what you know now?' He eyed the two stony faces and broke into his maddening cackle. 'If I know you barbarians so interesting, I come here long time ago!'
XI
In the House of the Sorcerer
For a day and a night Hathor-Ka had been performing the longest and most delicate ritual she had ever attempted. The Demon Star was in the eye of the constellation called the Serpent for the first time since the fall of Python more than one thousand years before. That last juxtaposition had coincided with the destruction of the terrible empire of Acheron by the barbaric Hybori. Hathor-Ka intended to use this opportunity to bring about an equally devastating change in the order of the world.
Only the closest of her acolytes assisted her in this rite. The less experienced would have been killed or driven insane by the sorcerous forces unleashed within the temple. Even the faithful Moulay had to stand guard outside the gate.
The walls and floor were covered with hieroglyphs, and the air was thick with incense as Hathor-Ka chanted shrilly in a tongue never intended to be spoken by human voice. Red streams dripped thickly from the altar onto the marble floor and Hathor-Ka's hands, bare arms, and heavy robe were likewise stained red. Behind her the acolytes chanted and played curious instruments that made rhythmic sounds that were not quite music.
Above the altar a wavering cloud formed a shimmering, shifting veil that for brief moments clarified to reveal sickening gulfs of space that the mind could not encompass while retaining sanity. Gradually, a hideous shape came into view. Against the void its size was impossible to calculate, but the inescapable impression was of overpowering immensity. Its colours were not such as the eye felt easy in gazing upon, and its unstable shape bespoke an origin far removed from the narrow band of time and space known to man.
As the thing neared the window to another world which Hathor-Ka had created, the sorceress chanted with renewed intensity. Her face was impassive, but sweat poured from beneath her diadem to stream down her face and soak her robe. The acolytes, now terrified, did not pause in their duties.
The being called forth by Hathor-Ka's spell extruded a limb like a tentacle and reached through the veil. Instantly, the temple was filled with a stench so vile that all the energy the acolytes possessed was required to keep them at their tasks.
At strange places along the tentacle were jointed claws and sucking mouths with circular rows of teeth. Though the limb was studded with jewellike eyes, they seemed blind in earthly light. It groped blindly, stopping as if at an invisible barrier when it encountered the rows of hieroglyphs that surrounded the altar. At last the tentacle touched one of the streams of blood that flowed from the altar and followed it to the stone. More of the limbs came into the room. Horrible, obscene sounds arose as the blood and fragments of the sacrificial victims were consumed.
Hathor-Ka's chant changed tone, and the tentacles withdrew, leaving no trace that there had ever been a sacrifice. Deep, rhythmic sounds came from beyond the veil, as if those in the temple were hearing a distant echo, swelling into an unearthly counterpoint to the chant of the sorceress and the acolytes. Slowly, the shape withdrew into the unthinkable gulfs that had spawned it. The window shrank and dispersed.
Hathor-Ka let her arms fall and she almost collapsed, but the strong arm of SenMut saved her from falling. 'You must rest, mistress,' he said.
'Even the strongest of mages would be exhausted by the pace you have kept.'
'I shall, SenMut,' she said, wearied beyond all previous experience.
'Purify the temple and store the tomes and devices securely. Double the guard. There is great danger of detection now.'
'It shall be done, mistress.'
Hathor-Ka retired to her chambers to bathe and rest.
She awoke from a deep and dreamless sleep to find Moulay standing by her bed, gently shaking her shoulder. 'Awake, mistress. Your house has been broken into and despoiled.'
'What?' She flung back the silk coverlet and arose. Her bed stood on a dais carved in the likeness of a coiled serpent, and she descended the tiers of its immense body to a small table. 'Explain instantly.' From the table she took a pitcher that contained a potion of herbs steeped in water. It was specially mixed to help her wake quickly.
'The crypt below your temple, where you keep your sorcerous screeds and instruments, has been entered. One of my men passed by the temple entrance on his rounds and smelled something amiss. It was blood. He ran to fetch me since he is forbidden to enter the temple. I went inside and saw corpses in the crypt. Even I dared not enter that room, so I came straightaway to wake you.' His mistress was already striding from the chamber.
Hathor-Ka descended the steps to the crypt behind an acolyte who held high a lantern. Behind her came Moulay, with drawn sword. 'Where is SenMut?' she asked.
'He was in the crypt, mistress,' said the acolyte, whose hand made the lantern tremble slightly. 'He and three others had the second watch this night. He seemed most eager to guard your possessions well.'
'How so?' she asked, frowning.
'He bore with him a sword, something he had never done before.'
With trepidation the acolyte stepped within the crypt. The lantern luridly illumined the ghastly scene inside. From the top of the steps, they had been able to glimpse only inert arms and legs. Now they saw three corpses, their blood carpeting the floor. One pale hand still pointed at an obscene statue set in a niche in the wall.
Moulay turned two of the bodies over with a foot. 'Stabbed in the throat,' he reported. 'Done quickly. They were taken completely unawares. He must have had the blade in the third one's throat before the first struck the floor.' None of the bodies was SenMut. 'But how did he get past my guards?'
Hathor-Ka stepped past the dead, pointing hand to the niche. She turned to the acolyte. 'Leave the lantern and go. Say nothing to the others before I return.' When the acolyte was gone she twisted certain of the perverted excrescences upon the statue in the
niche. A section of the wall swung away to reveal a dark tunnel. 'This is where he went,' she said.
'This crypt was the tomb of a high priest before my family built the temple and villa atop it. The tunnel was made by tomb robbers in ages past. It emerges in the fields not far from the river, beneath a small shrine.
One of my ancestors hid both entrances as a convenient escape route in times of danger.''
'How knew SenMut of this?'
'Never has the secret been outside my family,' she said. 'It must have been Thoth-Amon. Through his arts he has discovered this passage and suborned one of my acolytes.' She was pale and shaking with fury. Moulay had never seen his mistress so overwrought. 'How long? For how long has Thoth-Amon had free access to my house?'
'Why did he not come himself?' Moulay asked, 'I have set sentries which he and his creatures cannot pass. But none of
them would prevent an acolyte of mine from leaving with stolen goods.'
'What was taken?'
'Need you ask? The Skelos fragment, of course. He may have taken other things, but that is the important one. I must get it back.'
'If Thoth-Amon has it in his possession, will it do any good to have it back?'
'Yes. The fragment is not like a schoolboy's lesson, to be memorized and used at will. The physical possession of such things adds great force to the sorcerer's spells. That is why the great books of magic are so valuable, while later copies with the same text are far less so.' She made further adjustments to the statue, and the passage closed again. 'On the morrow I shall have workmen fill the tunnel with stone. Now get some of your best men together, desert men adept at night raiding. We shall pay my colleague Thoth-Amon a visit tomorrow night.'
For the rest of the night and through the next morning, Hathor-Ka rested. Then she began making preparations. With draughts and spells she fortified herself, gaining strength, speed, and endurance for the night's work. She would pay dearly for this in the days to come, but the stakes were such in this game that considerations of mere pain and exhaustion were trivial. She assembled arcane devices of crystal and bone, and studied occult spells, the mere reading of which chilled the air. As the sun lowered she entered her courtyard, where Moulay and his men were assembled.
The Conan Chronology Page 186